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Saturday, 2 April 2016

How Design, Photography Refreshed Dubai Art Week

By Tajudeen Sowole

As the five-edition-old Design
Days Dubai has expanded the creative landscape of Middle East's leading
business and leisure haven, a debutant, Dubai Photo Exhibition is,
potentially, the new face of the city as art hub. The photo exhibition is
designed to be a yearly global gathering in collaboration with World
Photography Organisation (WPO).

Installation titled
Forma by Khalid Shafar on display at Design Days Dubai Week

While Design Days Dubai flagged off the
city's yearly Art Week for 2016 at Downtown Dubai - a short distance
from Burj Khalifa - the photo show made its debut in the same week at Dubai
Design District (d3). The d3 is part of an ongoing expansion project in the
city's Free Trade Zone where investors are given autonomy to own business
without native content partnership.

Few buildings away from the venue of the
photography's opening, architect, Lindsay Miller has just briefed visiting
journalists about the aim of the promoters of d3 to create a space for creative
professionals in the Dubai Free Trade Zone. Phase-One of d3, Miller stated cost
$4bn just as the second phase was ongoing. And Phase-3, she disclosed,
"commences in 2021."

Conceived in 2013 by the UAE’s Prime Minister
and Head of Dubai, Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid al Maktoum - as a hub for creative
professionals - d3 has every reason to be ambitious. The Middle East's design
industry alone was estimated to worth around $2.3 billion in 2014.

With "1.8km of waterfront," Miller
assured that d3 is a crucial and integral part of the Dubai Free Trade Zone.
Already, about 85 per cent of the spaces have been occupied by professionals in
fashion, art and design fields. Regular events across creative genres, Miller added,
are spices that would boost d3 as partners in a business zone where
multinationals are expected to thrive.

Projection of d3 promoters include: featuring
a one million square foot Creative Community, in 2018, which will act as the
site’s cultural epicentre, inspiring emerging designers and artists, and
attracting tourists to the area. A year after, d3 will also boast a bustling
Waterfront, a 1.8km esplanade running alongside the Dubai Creek, with
international and design-led hotels, boutique retail concept stores and an
outdoor events space, as well as a host of hospitality and leisure facilities.

Less than an hour after Miller's briefing,
Secretary-General of Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Muktoum International
Photography Award (HIPA), Ali Bin Thalith; CEO of World Photography Organisation
(WPO), Scott Gray; and Head Curator, Global Perspective on Photography, Zelda
Cheatie opened the Dubai Photography
Exhibition with a press conference. Though it made its debut public show in
2016, the exhibition, according to Thalith was "created six years ago to
nurture photography excellence." The contents, he said, covers periods of
twentieth and Twenty first century photography.

For Grey, "a non-commercial"
ventilation for photography, he said, had always been the belief of WPO. And in
Dubai Photo Exhibition, he was "personally proud that it's a
reality."

Cheatie who led a 18-curators team of the
exhibition stressed the spread of the gathering: "From the four points of
the earth, we are glad to make this a huge team." She also declared that
"it's on a global scale."

Mounted in four spaces of what has been
described as purpose-built temporary museums, the contents indeed, confirm it's
global scale. From 23 countries, 700 works that cut across two centuries were
presented in museum style, showing events, peoples and places. Such contents
include the rural setting of Africa that shows family, school children and play
spots captured by Guy, to retrospection known as The Birmingham Project in U.S
that depicts over 50 years-old tragedy in a church, among others. Indeed, the Dubai
Photo Exhibition appears to have taken off on a documentary note.

About seven minutes drive out of d3, Design
Days Dubai continues. Art, in its functional, aesthetics and luxury classic
resides at the 2016 edition, so it seems as visitors take a tour of the booths
of galleries from across the world on third day of the event. But in quite a
few examples, the creative value of design appears to be more of priority above
functionality.

On Immediate right of the exhibition's entrance,
an installation that is interactive in concept -allowing you to move around the
welded mesh - probes perception of space and confinement in a journey. Few
steps away, comes Nakkash Gallery's display of installation titled Forma,
by artist, Khalid Shafar. Its presentation, as one of the most captivating
spots at the event, is a two-composite installations from artist, Shafar and
designers Alessandro Masturzo and Ilaria Lubelli.

Shafar's
Forma, a sculpture of deep cultural
content is made of 348 wool Agaals
woven together with wires and opaque Plexiglas that reflect lights in see
through form. The agaal, a ring form
of accessory well-known in Arab men traditional fashion stresses Shafar's
signature material. The artist explains that the installation "is a result
of a study and exploration of how identical 2D shapes can create 3D forms by
connecting and interconnecting all elements together."

The gallery has been participating at DesignDaysDubai since
inception in 2011. It explained how each of the 12 objects is
"interconnected using the Agaals,
creating a magical, fairytale illumination experience. “We’re thrilled to be a
part of DesignDaysDubai 2016 for the
fifth consecutive year. By featuring a mix of both international designers and
local talent, we believe the synergy of the two will take Design Days Dubai
2016 to the next level," said Wajih Nakkash, Founder and Lead
Designer. "With our stand this year we were looking for a creative mix of
art, interior design and culture and with Shafar's installation coupled with
some of our featured designers we did exactly that.”

On his collaboration,
Shafar noted that DesignDaysDubai
2016 "is another milestone for me towards strengthening my ties with
prestigious galleries such as Nakkash."

Born in 1980 in Dubai, and as a business
graduate of the American University in Dubai, Khalid worked in marketing and
communication for almost seven years.

With an expansive space of classic jewelries,
Paris, France-based Van Cleef & Arpel's stand confirms its new status as
winner of Middle East Emergent Designer Prize. Spiced by the glitters of choice
jewelries such as presentations in lighting and tall female models, the space
seems to offer all it takes to stress the value of high taste in wearable
accessories.

Across, on the right side is another prize-winner,
Ninjel Kumar, who picked the city's Urban Commission Award. Kumar's work, shown
at a modest space proved that the prize, which had 82 entries from other
applicants, deserved the winning prize.